The Unopposed Sweepstakes

Just to be clear, the competition mentioned in the heading does not really exist, although the things it involves definitely are noticed in many local elections.

And in the latest, it appears equally clear that the winner in Marshall County was relatively new County Board member Andy Stash of Henry.

The bad news for Stash, a semi-retired real estate appraiser who was appointed to a board seat almost a year ago, is that he didn’t actually receive any prizes by winning this sweepstakes with the impressive vote total he tallied in the election.

“I didn’t have a lot of competition,” he said with a good-natured laugh when congratulated in a courthouse hallway during a break in a recent board meeting.

But in a way, he did. And it says here that a win like his is worth noticing.

The basic question of the sweepstakes – which take place in various forms in many areas – is simple: Who gets the most votes among candidates who are unopposed for the offices they’re seeking?

Now that’s a really worthwhile thing to report, you’re thinking. What difference does it make, since all that it takes for unopposed candidates to win is to remember to at least vote for themselves?

But it can be quite interesting to note that, whatever the reasons, voters choose to show their support for some such candidates more than others.

Marshall County’s total (though still unofficial) voting results are on the county website. But here are a few examples of what those comparisons can look like.

In the three county-wide offices up for election, Republican incumbents won without opposition. In that branch of the sweepstakes, Sheriff Rob Russell got 3,730 votes, while County Clerk Melody Weber followed with 3,648, and County Treasurer Cynthia Nighsonger with 3,625.

Maybe those numbers indicate differences in personal popularity, or familiarity of names, or maybe voters are making more complicated decisions.

But one thing that can’t explain them is the popular refrain of voter apathy. These were 3,730 voters who made a point of marking their ballots for one unopposed incumbent, but then apparently made an equally conscious decision not to do so for one or two others.

(Or, it might be noted, for State Rep. David Leitch or Peoria, whose 73rd District includes Marshall County. State officials are not eligible for the unofficial unopposed sweepstakes anyway, but he got just 3,567 unchallenged votes in Marshall County.)

Similar patterns can be seen on a smaller scale in county board results. The county has three board districts of roughly equal population, though varying in geographic size, and all seven candidates on the ballot were unopposed.

To start at the head of the board table, so to speak, Chairman Gary Kroeschen of Toluca got 974 votes in District 2 in the eastern end of the county. Sue McGrath, who lives in the Lake Wildwood subdivision outside Varna, got just a few less at 947.

District 3, which is centered on Lacon, showed a bigger difference. Jack Johnson of Lacon got 846, while Hank Gauwitz of Lacon – the only Democrat on the board – followed with 735.

And just to interject a point of emphasis: There were two uncontested seats up for election in each of those districts. So voters weren’t choosing between Johnson and Gauwitz, for instance, but simply deciding to vote for one or both.

In District 1, which includes five townships around Henry, voters actually elected three board members – two for open four-year terms, and one for a two-year unexpired term on the 12-member panel.

The full terms went to incumbent Vicki Waldschmidt and newcomer David Minnick – who will be the only new face on a board that seldom has many – both of Henry. Waldschmidt received 938 votes and Minnick 684.

And then there was the unexpired term in a seat to which Stash had been appointed last year. He got the votes of 1,109 people from the same district.

Again, those weren’t people who had to choose between different candidates, because all District 1 voters had three candidates for three open seats. But a slug of them who filled in that little circle beside Stash’s name did not do so for the others.

Stash attributed the numbers to being well known from his real estate work and his long prior service on the city of Henry’s Planning and Zoning Board of Appeals. But he finally acknowledged that it was gratifying to see them.

“It does show some support,” he said.

He hopes to respond to that support with service, he added. He gave up his longtime position on the Henry zoning panel and is now bringing that experience to the county’s zoning committee.

And he also plans to commit more time to a goal shared by countless counties and communities of every size: Promoting economic development that would bring more jobs to area residents and tax revenues to the local governments that serve them.

“That’s what I want to focus on,” he said. “I’m going to have more time now, and I want to do a lot more.”

That would definitely be a sweepstakes worth winning.

Contact Gary L. Smith at glsmith@mtco.com. or follow him on Twitter @Glsmithx.

Author: Gary L. Smith

Gary L. Smith is a free-lance writer who has contributed regularly to the Journal Star since 1993. He reports primarily on events in Marshall, Putnam, and Stark Counties, and the name of this blog is derived from the way that judges in the Peoria-based 10th Judicial District refer to that area.
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